


break these earthly chains

by laikaspeaks



Series: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure Drabble Collection [3]
Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Dark Sun AU (Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure), F/F, Magical Bond, Magical Corruption, Moondrop | Moonstone Opal (Disney), Sundrop | Sundrop Flower (Disney)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27065557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laikaspeaks/pseuds/laikaspeaks
Summary: Rapunzel, corrupted by the power of the Decay Incantation, tempted Cassandra into claiming the power of the moonstone for herself. Cassandra has questions. The answers may not be what she was hoping.
Relationships: Cassandra/Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled)
Series: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure Drabble Collection [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046908
Comments: 45
Kudos: 171





	1. no more waiting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tovanori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tovanori/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Dark Rapunzel AU](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/702013) by tovanori. 



"So why me? Why not anyone else?" Cass asked, settling with her back against the wall out of habit even though there was no reason to be alert at the top of a thousand feet of smooth black stone.

This was the one thing she still couldn’t figure out. Rapunzel could have chosen literally _anyone_ else. Sure she called Cassandra her friend, but there were plenty of others who would more gladly follow her into hell, and without Cassandra's doubts or questions. 

"I’m greedy.” Rapunzel answered, and hummed to herself as she combed her black bangs back from her forehead, tilting her head this way and that in the mirror to decide if she liked the effect. There was something decidedly birdlike about her preening, even more than when she was actually physically a bird. “I like to keep the things I like close.”

Her eyes flicked from her own reflection to regard Cass in the mirror, golden irises gleaming in onyx. Rapunzel smiled, all of the brightness Rapunzel ever turned on Cass concentrated in that one expression. Perhaps that was what made her so eerie - this stranger burning so fiercely for Cassandra, her gaze filled with such adoration despite the chill in her words. This mirror-reversed Rapunzel wanted to hoard Cassandra like a dragon with treasure, and it was more than Cass could handle. 

"Oh," Cass murmured, for lack of anything coherent to say.

Rapunzel huffed out a laugh, and went back to playing with her hair. "Yes. Oh."

Cassandra thought about that for longer than she wanted to admit. Those words ran circles in her head, driving her to more distraction than they should when Rapunzel wasn’t even herself. 

Meanwhile Rapunzel abandoned her mirror and went about her business in their makeshift bedroom. It was mostly all harsh angles and glossy black surfaces, with the mirror and cleverly placed black stones that served as vanity and a chair, the only softness in the space a pile of pillows that served as bedding. Recently Rapunzel also started gathering candles and lanterns, which made more sense when she started accumulating books that were beginning to take over the corners of the room in their teetering stacks. Cass didn't even want to know where she got this stuff at this point.

It wasn't as if Rapunzel usually spent much time in this room anyway. Much like her normal counterpart the princess loathed being indoors. Some days Cass actually found herself carrying the wild thing back to her room after she fell asleep curled in some wooded hollow or on a sunlight-warmed rock. If it were safe to leave her wherever she fell, Cass might. It was better than the way Rapunzel woke gasping for breath whenever she slept in the tower. Cass wondered how many of the nightmares were new.

“I still don’t understand.” Her mouth said, betraying her despite her best efforts to keep that thought locked away. A terrible hope spread through her chest, dyeing her deeply as the moonstone she now bore in Rapunzel’s name.

"Hmm?" Rapunzel didn't pause in sorting through her books.

"Why… why _me_?” 

"I gave the stone to you because I didn't _have_ you, not really." She glanced up, and giggled at Cassandra’s expression. “Don’t look at me like that. Just because I pretended I didn’t see doesn’t mean I didn’t notice. You resented me. You were so jealous.”

Cassandra’s words caught in her throat. She couldn’t respond, couldn’t think with that deep, dark part of herself so casually laid bare.

"Didn't you want to be chosen, Cassandra? Didn't you want to be special?" Rapunzel crossed the room to lean into her space, which would have been enough to scramble her thoughts any day of the week even without the open affection on Rapunzel's face. Without the way she drew out her name with something like delight. It was different from Rapunzel's usual friendliness, no matter how she tried to tell herself otherwise. "Well now you are. You can’t be mad at me anymore, because the great destiny that chose you was _me_. I get what I want and so do you."

“What if this wasn’t what I wanted?” Cass managed finally, and hated how her voice broke. Hated it with such a passion that it felt like it would split her new stone heart in two. Cassandra couldn’t even bear to keep looking at this Rapunzel. She saw too much, knew too much. 

Her hand slid under Cassandra's jaw, forcing Cass to look her in the eye. Even then, her thumb smoothed over Cassandra's jaw in a soothing, hypnotic motion. "Oh, Cass. Do you think that anyone gets to choose?”

This Rapunzel was more self-assured than she ever was in the past, her expressions almost always edged with a sort of sleepy amusement, as though whatever was taking place was a private joke. That detachment lingered even now, even with almost-pity taking root in those darkly gleaming eyes. 

"Do you think I got to choose? When I was a baby, stolen away and kept in a tower? When I became a prisoner to this power a second time?" She smiled, but it was an empty gesture. "Be grateful. You have the luxury of wanting this."


	2. light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is actually set BEFORE the first chapter.

That first night was a harsh one. They had no cart, no tent, no shelter of any kind. After running for what felt like days they eventually had to set up camp when finally got too dark to see. If you could call it a camp. It was little more than a tiny alcove in the brush and a fire just large enough to keep the beasts away but not enough for warmth. The temperature dropped as night fell, the cool night wind gathering up storm clouds on the horizon. In that context Cassandra should have seen something like this coming. 

Rapunzel held her arms out expectantly.

“What?” Cassandra wasn’t sure she heard that correctly.

“I want you to hold me.”

“And you think I’m going to do that?”

Rapunzel laughed quietly. “After what we’ve already done this is where you draw the line?”

It was more than that. Cassandra rationed out her contact with Rapunzel, and had long memorized the sliver-thin boundary between affection and desire. “What if I say no?”

That unblinking gaze faltered, and Rapunzel’s arms wrapped around herself. Rapunzel - the real Rapunzel and not this corrupted shade - was sometimes remorseful, sometimes moody or withdrawn, but never small. Never the way she was before she lifted her eyes again. “Are you going to?”

“No.”

Rapunzel flinched. Then her brows drew together and her nose wrinkled in that familiar expression of confusion. “Uh, no as in “I’m not going to” or no as in - ”

Cass stomped over to the other side of the tiny fire and flopped down on the ground, cutting off the princess with a look.

“Oh, yeah. Okay. Sure.” Rapunzel was quiet for a long time, her black eyes reflecting the firelight. She looked more like something that fell from the night sky than she ever did.

“Believe it or not I want the same things you do - ” She murmured finally, laying back in the grass and letting her hands fall to either side of her head. For a moment she looked soft and defenseless, before her sharp gaze cut to Cass once more. “- I want you to look at me.”

Cassandra couldn’t say how she would have responded to that. She never got the chance, because the sky finally made good on its threatening rumbling. It was abrupt as having a bucket of water dumped on her head, except that it just kept coming. Thankfully Cass planned for this. She stepped over the doused fire and grabbed Rapunzel by the sleeve, tugging her towards a dip in a hill where a massive tree fell long ago. The pulled-up earth created a small cave - small enough that she risked the rain instead of close quarters with her companion.

“I’m really missing that cart right now.” She pulled Rapunzel further under the overhang, using her free hand to tuck some of the brush better around the opening. It had the advantage of both hiding their location and keeping the worst of the rain out.

Rapunzel blinked out at the rain, wringing some of the water out of her hair. “Did you know this was here when we stopped?”

“Yeah, believe it or not I didn’t just pick this spot for the flowers.” That was only part of the reason. Rapunzel loved that kind of thing no matter what weird shit got into her head, apparently. Cassandra busied herself with tucking their scarce supplies further from the rain.

“That sounds like you.”

Rapunzel’s voice came from further away than Cass expected, and when she looked up her heart sank. “What are you doing over there?”

Rapunzel tucked herself a little further against the opposite wall of the overhang, almost invisible in the tangle of roots. “I haven’t changed _that_ much, Cass. You made your wishes pretty clear.” 

There wasn’t any particular tone to Rapunzel’s voice, but it still jabbed Cassandra’s heart with guilt. Cassandra enjoyed her space and control of who and when anyone ended up in that space. That went double for Rapunzel. It was too easy to forget about every oath and obligation when it came to the princess. On the other hand the weather had gone from merely cool to wet and miserable. Cass heaved a sigh and lifted an arm to give Rapunzel room to slot against her side. “Come here. It’s cold.”

Rapunzel shot over quickly enough that it made Cass instinctively throw up a hand and plant it in the middle of Rapunzel’s face.

“W-whoa, don’t -”

The tiny space filled with the pale amber of candlelight, but too steady to be a flame. It was so warm. Her hand settled against Rapunzel’s cheek before she could think better of it. 

"Rapunzel, what the fuck?" Every strand of Rapunzel's newly pitch-black hair was outlined in gold, an eclipse in the flesh. 

Cassandra pulled her hand away and watched the glow fade. Putting her hand back on Rapunzel's cheek made her hair light up once more. Rapunzel didn't even try to move away. Instead she pressed her face into Cassandra's palms like an affectionate cat, so shameless that it made Cassandra seriously consider flinging herself from the nearest cliff.

Instead she reclaimed her hand, mourning the light and warmth before it even faded.

"Oh, don't stop on my account, Cass." Rapunzel laughed, and she almost looked like her old self. Until her laughter trailed off, and she looked up at Cass with an expression that made Cassandra's hair stand up on the back of her neck. She knew Rapunzel. Every thought played out on her face.

Cassandra only saw this expression once: when she promised to take her outside for the very first time. Longing was too tame a word. It was a hunger so keen that nothing could sate or save her from it.. It was one thing to see Rapunzel staring that way at the horizon - it was entirely another to have that expression turned on Cassandra. 

As though she were the entire world and Rapunzel was stumbling wide-eyed in the grass all over again.

"Touch me."

Cassandra nearly choked on her own spit.

"Don't touch me. Come closer. Don't come closer." Rapunzel tilted her head, and her dark hair spilled over her shoulder. "Aren't you tired, Cassandra? I know I am."

Rapunzel slid closer with glacial slowness until she was practically in Cassandra's lap... then literally in her lap, her arms sliding around Cassandra's shoulders. Rapunzel's lips curled in an uncharacteristic smirk, though it wasn't enough to cover the blush staining her cheeks.

"You're glowing too, you know," Rapunzel breathed, her finger twining around one of Cassandra's curls and pulling it into her line of sight. Cassandra's hair was blue, that much she could see from her peripheral. What she hadn't realized was that hers was glowing as well. 

“Beautiful.” Rapunzel murmured, not looking at Cassandra’s hair at all.

Fortunately, Rapunzel buried her face in Cassandra’s neck before Cass could do something stupid. Unfortunately, it meant the pleased noise Rapunzel let out was practically against her burning ear. She slid her arms around Rapunzel’s waist, telling herself the line was already obliterated. It would hardly make any difference to take liberties now. This entire situation was absolute madness… but she would worry about that another day. Instead she leaned her cheek on the top of Rapunzel’s head. Her senses were flooded with crushed leaves and turned earth, black-tea-bitter lingering on the back of her tongue. Dark, heady, and herbal. It suited Rapunzel. More than the rich, delicate perfumes and soaps that wreathed the princess than she was in the capital.

Cass could pinpoint the exact moment that Rapunzel started falling asleep - the content, aimless humming against her neck exchanged for Rapunzel’s thumb rubbing drowsy circles just over Cassandra’s lowest rib. Was her warmth supposed to seep through Cassandra’s armor this way?

Was it supposed to set her on fire?

**Author's Note:**

> Show mercy on me y'all, I fell in love with this AU but I've watched all of two episodes of this show so I had to bullshit some of it. Whoops.


End file.
